


Better for Everyone

by moroder



Category: Beholder (Video Game)
Genre: Bromance if you squint, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, POV Second Person, POV Third Person at the end, Self-Harm, outcome slightly out of canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-18
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23197834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moroder/pseuds/moroder
Summary: There's a lot of options to retrieve the nuclear bomb blueprints, but there's always one more way that you'll find out at the end.
Relationships: Albert Meineke & Bastian Walner





	Better for Everyone

Carefully closing the fourth flat door behind yourself, you exhale silently. Nothing bad happened today. Your previous mistakes turned into your benefits throughout the last two days, but you still couldn’t let your guard down.

Picking up the phone at the very first day was the biggest mistake in your entire career. The same applied to being oblivious to a camera hidden in a place different than usual. Nevertheless, the landlord pinned you against the wall with his tapes exposing your little secret. Strange enough, but your passionate talk about stopping the war was enough to convince him in your pacifism. You didn’t even have to threaten him with a gun.

You’ve seen Walner before – you’ve got a photo from the engineer’s personal file, so you could easily identify him. Idly smoking a pipe, you watched from the bench across the road as two people got off the bus. One could see them as father and daughter, but you knew that the pretty lady was Bastian’s wife. As you read about that for the first time, you wondered how these two came to be a couple, but it wasn’t your task to delve deeper into personal matters this time.

Carl did the most crucial thing in your task by moving Walners in, and you were endlessly thankful. The second step awaited though, and it was the thing you came to sit and think about.

Usually there were several ways to retrieve an object from a person who owns it. Talk into it, take away, steal… Bribe someone to steal it. What a variety.

Your mind began playing the possible events. Convincing the engineer was out of the way at the start, considering how you were still a mute neighbor for everyone. Write a letter? Things like this aren’t supposed to be discussed by letters, and what if his wife reads it instead of him… Taking by force isn’t a nice way too. Not the first time you did it, and it always disgusted you. There’s always a chance for a better solution, a question of patience and will…

Fine. Stealing counted as another illegal way. You imagined yourself taking the third flat key from Carl’s belt… and froze with realization that it would be impossible to steal a key from someone who always watches it. He never seemed to sleep, too. No matter when you came down to the kitchen, you almost always saw Carl leaving his room or being already in the same room with you. He looked as grim as always but never seemed to suffer from sleep deprivation. Perhaps it was a special sleeping schedule. You wanted to ask him about that, but you never caught the perfect moment.

In any case, the path of breaking into the third flat on your own was impossible. The last one was inevitably connected to Stein, too. You hesitated, thinking whether it was worth entrusting Carl with such a dangerous job. Shifting this weight to another man’s shoulders would bring you some relief, but what if the landlord decides to use the blueprints at his own discretion… Selling them to another spy of another country, for example. You came to a conclusion that it fully depended on your trust for Stein… and it was hard to decide.

Your mind once again gave you some pictures of forceful solution. You knock on the door; Walner opens it, completely unaware of anything, and gets a bullet to his head. Or just a hit in the face that leaves him unconscious. If his wife’s also there, chances are she’ll die even faster than Bastian. She’d just be too loud. Finding the blueprints isn’t hard, you think. A harder task is to do that before the Public Servants come and cuff you…

Wait. No. Stop that, why do you even think about it? No deaths. Not this time.

Taking off the coat, you fall into your bed. Nothing happened today, but you’re incredibly tired.

* * *

The next day, a phone call wakes you. You’re being rushed. Uncertain times are coming, and chances are you won’t be able to leave back for Valverde. It’s your concern to hurry. You hang up with a sigh of displeasure. Not the first time you hear all this, and it left you with a feeling of being in The Boy Who Cried Wolf story. You didn’t want to end up devoured by wolves, so you decided to act.

Carl wasn’t glad to hear the news about having to come up with a plan to retrieve some secret papers. He mumbled about how he moved Walners in ahead of others because of your special request, but he wasn’t going to take part in document theft. So, clutching at straws, you offered him help in anything else. A fair exchange. Then the landlord told you how this morning Bastian lamented about his wife, his suspicions about her and his idea to trace her status when he isn’t home. He didn’t expect an immediate answer; he rather felt like sharing his worries and making a suggestion.

Watching someone’s wife wasn’t the first time in your practice. Nothing special. Easily accomplished. In exchange for that, Carl agreed to think about your blueprints mission. Big deal, you thought, a couple of days to spend in a different activity. You’d bring some variety into your local life. Carl’s task would be harder nevertheless.

Bastian and Clara looked like a normal married couple. Husband is always busy at work, wife stays at home and does whatever she likes. Over time, you found out why Walner could suspect her to cheat on him – her sociability was out of limits, and her lifestyle… was sort of loitering, if it could be called that way. When you saw each other at the kitchen that day, she hung onto you, slightly drunk, and asked for a cigarette for a dear lady. You don’t smoke cigarettes, so you just shook your head. She tried asking for some other things but soon became bored with you. Either that she guessed you to be mute or that you’re a very dull person. You were satisfied with any of two versions.

Apart from this, however, nothing peculiar happened. Peeking into the third flat’s peephole from time to time, you muttered to yourself that you’d better handle the blueprints than this. You were watching people all your spare time anyway. Though, even if Clara did in fact cheat on her husband, what’s the reason? Was he mediocre in bed? Was she bored with him? Did someone pay her for this?.. Your head was swarming with thoughts about cheap soap operas when you felt a painful poke in your back. Turning around and gripping the gun in your pocket, you saw Carl who wagged a finger at you and grunted that watching someone should be more discreet. When you asked him how exactly a discreet watching should be done, Carl silently left.

As he went downstairs, you leant onto the door again. It was hard to see fully, but Bastian and Clara sat at the table with some papers lying around and discussed something with passion. Actually, the woman was way more passionate, and her husband mostly nodded, inserting a word or two. There was quite a pack of papers; at first, a dumb thought came to your head that these were the blueprints you needed. Judging by Clara, though, it’s unlikely that Bastian would discuss his job with her… Listening closely, you heard the words “romance” and “plot”, and it all came together in your head: they were writing something together! It gave some more sense to their marriage, you thought with a smile, moving away from the peephole. Let them work in peace.

A couple of hours later, you went to take a walk and noticed a familiar person on the bench across the street. Surprisingly, it stopped raining at the moment. Crossing the road, you came closer. Walner sat under the dim lamp light, holding some rectangular object that turned out to be a folded chessboard upon closer look. He seemed to be waiting for someone. Not you – but you came close enough to be noticed in plain sight.

“…huh? Oh, good evening,” you seemed to catch him off guard. “Your name was Albert, right?”

You nodded and pointed at the bench.

“Sure, be my guest… I was waiting for someone, but he doesn’t seem to come today.”

Bastian moved a little to the side, although the bench had enough space. You sat down and gestured awkwardly around the chessboard in his hands.

“Oh, this… I waited for a friend to come and play some matches. No such luck, I guess.”

You suddenly came up with an amazing idea. In fact, you had it in the moment you saw a chessboard in Walner’s hands, but it became even more relevant now. You pointed at the chess again, then at yourself and the engineer. He glanced at you with confusion.

“You… you want us to play together? Sorry, I could misinterpret you…” You nodded, and he smiled gently. “Okay. But be warned, I’m not a rookie in this.”

 _Me too,_ you almost said out loud but stopped yourself in time. The last thing you needed was blowing your cover in front of someone else.

Lying in your bed the same evening, staring at the ceiling, you reflected on today’s results. It wasn’t much, to be honest. The only profit you’ve got was talking to your subject of interest, although it couldn’t be fully called talking. You kept silence, listening to Bastian’s muttering as he pondered on the next move. He asked you something a couple of times and then cut himself off, remembering that you can’t answer. You could only watch, and you did it well.

There was something about Walner that hooked you. You had to get close to people because of your missions, way closer than just play a game of chess, and there was nothing attractive about those people. Even beautiful girls turned grey and forgettable without their makeup. All the same, all interested in similar things… Bastian didn’t tell you anything about himself; only obvious traits stood out in him. He was polite, very calm, good at playing chess and… maybe a little sad. You could be thinking too much into it, though. You only played a couple of games with him.

Maybe you two will figure it out. There’s not much you needed to do… But you already gave this task to Carl – who was still unsuccessful, by the way. You couldn’t blame him, he was likely busy with other stuff to do along with your secret projects. Earlier, his young daughter Martha already tried to pull off your coat by grabbing its end. Her father then explained to her that uncle Albert won’t talk to her; not because he was upset with her behavior but because he just… couldn’t talk at all. Despite that, the girl was still sticking by your side whenever she saw you, probably because both of you stayed at home all the time. She told you about her brother that moved far, far away.

No wonder, you thought back then, that Stein was constantly so occupied with everything. That was partly the reason you didn’t often think about having a family. Seeing each other once in a few months, if you’re lucky enough to survive. You didn’t want to change your profession in the near term, so you paid with your loneliness.

These thoughts wouldn't do you any good. So you turned on your side, wrapped yourself up in a blanket and tried to fall asleep, chasing other people away from your head.

* * *

Nevertheless, you didn’t quite succeed in that, as you woke up very early and in a mess. You wanted to forget the dreams you had, but the details kept floating around, and you were very lucky that the government hadn’t yet found a way to spy on the tenants’ minds – just their bodies.

You met Bastian at the stairs. He seemed to be going to work and wished you a good morning. You shook his hand awkwardly, almost regretting you couldn’t say the same. As he left, you watched him go downstairs, standing in a state of confused haze, remembering the dreams you had. It was almost funny how your mind took some of your intimate memories and replaced your past sexual partners with Bastian. Dreams are merely something composed out of memories at random, you kept trying to convince yourself, but your subconscious didn’t give in.

The third flat door opened again, and you flinched, your thoughts already gone. Clara Walner smiled at you, and you remembered that your so-called watching mission was still in progress.

You haven’t seen Bastian till the very evening, and it was somewhat good for you. There was still time to think about what you should do about the evidence you got today. The answer was obvious: go tell Carl that you saw some indecent scene in room number three, and he’ll do just what he needs. At the same time, you wanted to look into Clara’s eyes and ask her about all this, ask her why was she doing it, even though you’d have to destroy your cover once again… Family drama usually passed you by if it wasn’t about you, and this time you magically became interested in justice.

At the end, you decided to drop the knight in shining armor attitude and went straight to Carl. He wasn’t particularly happy hearing the news, but he also wasn’t surprised. He said a couple of words about how Clara was the sort of people to expect such things from, and at the end he admitted that he was sort of happy about the outcome. People like Clara weren’t good in a house, and she was most likely going to leave after all this. However, none of you dared predict how Bastian would handle the situation.

It didn’t take long. For the whole evening, you heard muffled cursing and arguments from behind the opposite door, and around nine o’clock Clara Walner has left the house. Permanently. You were partially happy too, as her presence made you nervous, and her past and present disgusted you. Another part of you asked sheepishly: will her husband live through this?

As it calmed down, you came to the kitchen for hot water and saw Bastian there. He sat at the table all alone, eyeing a cup of coffee that has gone cold long ago. He heard you coming in but didn’t turn or greet you in any way. Putting the kettle on, you stepped away and stood behind Walner, keeping silence. You couldn’t really change the situation, could you? Life was tough on him now. He must’ve really loved his wife and didn’t expect her to do this… although, according to Carl, he did. Was he too naïve and waited for a good outcome? Hoped for the best and trusted her with all his heart?..

As you thought about all this, Walner finally moved from his motionless state – he covered his face with hands and howled softly. What do you do now? What was the last time you consoled people whose life has gone downhill? That’s right – it wasn’t your job. You raised your hand above the engineer’s shoulder to gently put it down and cheer him up, saying that it’s not that bad, that he’ll meet someone who wouldn’t destroy his trust in such a vile way…

Only as you opened your mouth to say it, the ice-cold realization of what you were going to do burned you and you yanked away your hand. No personal contacts with mission subjects. The kettle was boiling, so you filled your mug and fled as soon as you could, leaving Walner alone to mourn.

The tea was awful. Sipping the half-transparent liquid, you sat in a worn-out armchair and though about your future course of action. Your secret watching mission was over. You left a man shattered to pieces, and you still needed to retrieve his work somehow. There was still some hope for Carl, as he was able to not only talk to people but also had a reputation among tenants.

* * *

It was a lousy start of the day. You forgot to close the window, and by morning your room became unbearably cold, making you wake up to a sore throat. Coughing and kicking yourself for being shortsighted, you went to Stein in hope to find out at least something nice. He looked suspicious at the very start and tried to avoid talking to you. Soon, you found out the reason.

He retrieved the papers. Walner gave them to him to store without second thought. Sure, scolding him was the easiest thing. But you wanted to scold Carl for betraying your agreement and handing the papers back as soon as the engineer asked for them.

If not for the fact that the house was full of other people, you would probably shoot Carl at that very place. Or you’d grab him by the collar and show him that breaking the deals of such importance was unforgivable… But your anger didn’t break out. With no words, you left Stein where he was and returned to your flat.

The door banged after you, louder than usual. Here, you allowed yourself to curse very wholeheartedly. **Handed back!** He was holding the papers that could change lives of hundreds of thousands of people, to stop the war that was raging on for almost half a century, but no, what was Carl Stein even thinking about?! His image played in your head; he awkwardly defended himself, saying that he won’t use a man’s weakness when he’s at his lowest point. But what about the young men daily dying on the battlefield, what about the future of those who were approaching the army age? You could tell Carl about your nephew and your younger brother who gave their lives for homeland, but you knew that it wouldn’t change a thing. As if Stein didn’t have a son that vanished somewhere. Maybe Martha was just told that he left, and he in fact lost his life in the hellfire just like others.

Slowly, the burning rage in your soul died away, and you managed to unclench your fists and take a deep breath. Fine, if Carl was no longer useful, you had to do it all yourself. Again, your mind gave you the ways to carry out this operation, peaceful or not. No matter how much you despised the violent ways, it seemed that it was the correct course of action this time.

No one was going to let out girlish screams this time. So the plan was the same: come in, make him hand in the documents with a gun and then go off the book. You remembered from what you saw that Bastian was quite melancholic and not very agile, so he would unlikely fight back. Even if he would, what’s his chance against a gun? Your accuracy is exceptional, just like your chess playing skills. Two in the heart, one in the head. Even if he has a gun, he’ll lose – just like he did in your chess matches.

So many chess references. You should compete in a game for those blueprints. Any option that wouldn’t lead to death of at least one of you.

You pull the pistol out of your coat pocket, inspect it quickly, take off the safety and put the armed hand back in the pocket. You have no idea how exactly you’re going to act, but you wouldn’t be Meineke if you couldn’t handle this mission.

_how, why, where did I go wrong, why does it happen to me when I found the only joy I wanted in life_

You open your door decisively, not locking it behind yourself. Then you approach the opposite flat and don’t even look in the peephole.

_can’t, oh dear, it stings, I need to do something, what can I even do, what can I e v e n_

_I hate her so much_

_I hate myself so much, damn it, stings…_

Clenching the pistol grip, you raise a hand to knock on the door, but for some reason you then pull the doorknob yourself.

_if I have nothing but hate then why hasn’t it burned me yet… it’s easy to to fix though_

_gunpowder_ _can burn through everything_

The door opened, inviting. Albert Meineke was a little surprised, but not more than after hearing Carl’s story about the returned blueprints. He snuck in instantly, shut the door, simultaneously taking out the gun and pointing it at the flat owner.

The man sitting at the desk in front of him did the exact same thing.

“Think carefully,” he said, gritting his teeth. “I have nothing to lose.”

“Me too,” Albert said aloud and felt physically relieved. Finally, he said a word at this man! Not quite the situation he wanted to do that in, though…

Certain degree of shock on Bastian’s face was enough for the intruder to look around a bit. Judging by what he could see in the dim lights, the next room was in a state of total paper chaos; some sheets made it to the first room too, all around the floor and even under Walner, and some of them were covered in dark stains, as if splattered with liquid. He looked up and saw Bastian’s other arm having the shirtsleeve rolled up, and the hand itself was all cut up and down; a puddle of blood formed under it, dripping on the papers on the floor, staining them with scarlet color.

“The door was unlocked,” Meineke said casually, keeping his gun on the tenant.

“I don’t think that’s why you entered, comrade Talking Mute,” the engineer snarled. “Were you hired to kill me?”

“Will you believe my words if I say them holding you at gunpoint, or should I switch to violence?”

Walner laughed without a sound. Somehow, Albert felt bitterness on his lips after this.

“Don’t trouble yourself, I’ll handle it…”

His hand with a gun that was pointed at the spy started moving back, elbow bending. Meineke instantly figured it out and rushed at him.

At the very moment when the gun almost got into the engineer’s mouth, Albert hit his wrist with a swing; the weapon fell down with a metal thump. Meineke kicked it under the wardrobe to keep it inaccessible in the next moments.

Looking back at Walner, he realized that he wouldn’t need to use a gun himself, too. The man looked terrible. His cut hand was clenching something that resembled a paper sheet; he pressed his free hand against his forehead and wailed like a wounded animal. Like back then, in the kitchen, but despair turned up to eleven. Before anyone started wondering about the reason of wailing, the spy slapped him with a free hand. It worked: the man fell silent mid-sound and looked at him, terrified.

“Bastian,” Meineke put the safety back on and hid the pistol in his pocket again. It allowed him to grab the engineer’s shoulders with both hands. “Bastian! Look me in the eyes. Tell me, why did you cut your arm? Why did you just nearly shoot yourself?”

“It… doesn’t matter. Stay out of my life…” He turned away again, covering the hurt side of his face. “Why did you come here? You wanted to kill me, and now you’re concerned about my condition?”

“I offered a peaceful solution, but you decided to kill yourself as an answer. So I’m asking again: will you listen?”

“Do I really have a choice…”

And Meineke patiently retold him the same story he used for Carl a while ago. Expectedly, it caused Walner the same emotional response and questions. But as the story came to the main point, the agent paused unexpectedly for himself.

“And you came to get rid of me and retrieve the damn papers, right?” Bastian finished with anguish instead of him. “Again, you could just wait until I…”

“ **No!** Death is not an exit,” Albert flared up, as if it wasn’t him pointing a gun at his neighbor several minutes ago. “Especially _your_ death.”

“What do you mean?”

He thought, too late, that his tongue gave it out and he wanted to say the same thing with a more careful choice of words. Screw ambiguity then.

“I’m more than sure that your blueprints are professionally made. But you would also agree that if their author were to work with them, things would work out way faster.”

“What… what are you trying to say?”

Walner’s voice sounded somewhat resented, as if he as an honest engineer was offered a bribe. Perhaps it actually worked out like that? Nothing else. A bribe that allowed him to live somewhere relatively better, a chance to change the world to be a better place… Isn’t that worth living?

“Bastian, take the blueprints and come to Valverde with me. Leave this dusty place… and the life in which you survive and don’t fully live.”

“Why the sudden care about a stranger? Shouldn’t you care none about those whose projects you steal?”

“Listen…” Meineke rubbed his forehead, choosing words. “It’s a special project. Don’t you see that if you choose to cooperate with our engineers, the war will be stopped way faster? So many lived saved, all thanks to you…”

“I understand, Albert… But who’s going to save me after all that?”

“N-no one’s going to execute you after,” he even stuttered because of the unexpected question.

“Oh, I didn’t mean that…”

Walner sighed deeply and glanced at his bloody arm. _Oh shoot, I think I got it,_ Meineke thought in a second. He dropped to the engineer’s level, trying to look into his eyes.

“Bastian… I’ll try to help you. I’ve never had such incidents in my life but… we can always find a specialist for you. If you need confidence in someone, then here I am right in front of you. I give you my word.”

“She also… gave her word… at the marriage registry,” Walner smiled sadly.

“Not everyone is like your ex-wife. Someone’s got a tint of conscience.”

“And your conscience didn’t let you shoot me at once?”

“Perhaps. Stay here, I’ll only make one call and come back to treat your arm. Looks horrible…”

At the doorstep, Meineke heard the flat owner laugh and turned around. He actually looked better than half an hour ago.

“Albert… thank you for giving me hope. Even if it won’t work out… It’s nice to know that you’re not alone in the whole world.”

Only after closing the fourth flat door behind himself, he could finally relax. He went straight to the phone, losing no time. Dialing the familiar number, Meineke waited for encrypted connection to establish and wondered how he will explain to his superiors that along with the blueprints he was taking their author with him. But he was sure it would cause no trouble.

The less deaths, the better, he thought from the very childhood. Better for everyone. Hell, and you’re now an international secret agent with a motto like this, Meineke chuckled. He heard two clicks, and his native tongue began creaking in the speaker.

**Author's Note:**

> the "it stings, it stings" part was supposed to mean that it stings in the soul, but then my hand slipped


End file.
